The airline said two-thirds of its departures from Heathrow left ahead of schedule in April
British Airways has revealed a significant leap in flight punctuality at Heathrow Airport, attributing the improvement to cutting-edge artificial intelligence and digital technology.
They reported that two-thirds of their flights from the west London hub took off ahead of schedule in April, over double the rate seen in the same period in 2023. The figure also marks an increase of almost 20 per cent compared to April 2024, the airline added.
British Airways credited the punctuality boost to its adoption of “artificial intelligence, forecasting, optimisation, and machine learning.”
The carrier also highlighted a £100 million investment in enhancing operational resilience.
This hefty investment has fuelled the creation of various innovative digital tools and applications to make travellers’ flying experiences smoother as well as cut the numbers of delays and missed connections.
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One such innovation includes a system facilitating the real-time assignment of landing aircraft to stands, factoring in passengers’ connecting flight information to lessen the chances of missed transfers, and reportedly saving around 160,000 minutes worth of delays.
Additionally, another system now reroutes planes proactively to circumvent bad weather patches, having avoided approximately 243,000 minutes in hold-ups.
Punctual streak
Boasting a record-setting on-time departure rate of 86 per cent for the first quarter, British Airways has enjoyed its most punctual streak yet, a substantial climb from 46 per cent back in 2008.
At an innovation summit in Pittsburgh, USA, British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle emphasised the importance of operational performance:
“Improving operational performance is a key part of our investment programme because we know the impact delays and disruption can have on our customers.”
AI solutions
He acknowledged: “Whilst disruption to our flights is often outside of our control, our focus has been on improving the factors we can directly influence and putting in place the best possible solutions for our customers when it does happen.
“That’s why we’ve invested £100 million in our own operational resilience, putting funding into technology and tools, and devising a better way of working on the ground at Heathrow as well as creating an additional 600 operational roles into the airport.
“The tech (our) colleagues have at their fingertips has been a real gamechanger for performance, giving them the confidence to make informed decisions for our customers based on a rapid assessment of vast amounts of data.”